Testing Wildcat bullet BCs

About a month ago I started a thread in this forum hoping to recruit people willing to test some of the wildcat bullets 225gr RBBT 30 caliber bullets I had ordered, when they arrived. In the last email I had exchanged with Richard, he said that the bullets might be a while (a month or more possibly) due to having a die worked on. While I was waiting on them to arrive, two fellow forum members volunteered to test samples for BC when they arrived.

I emailed Richard at the beginning of the week wondering if there had been any progress (more out of growing tired of going to the mailbox waiting on bullets and being disappointed than anything else).

Richard informed me that due to posts I had made on this board, he would not be filling my order. Richard expressed that he felt betrayed by my posts, and that he thought I had taken a position that was "he will do anything to sell you bullets" I presume refering to the claimed high BC that was estimated by his die makers.

I have emailed richard since his reply attempting to explain that I believe that all of this is a misunderstanding, and that, as I mentioned in my origional posts, i have no ill will toward Mr. Graves.
All of this to no avail. I have not heard anything from Richard since my reply 4 days ago.
Consequently, it appears I will be unable to provide bullets to the two members who volunteered to help.
Brent Moffitt, and Goodgrouper, thanks for the offer, but don't be watching your mailbox /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Reading back through my origional thread, I found a post that pretty well summed up where I thought this issue was.

Goodgrouper said:
[ QUOTE ]
I do agree with you that the Wildcat bullets have huge potential. I am waiting for mine to show up anxiously. But I think when comparing bullets, it needs to be done by keeping as many of the variables the same as possible. There are certain facts that can be discovered about bullets without ever putting velocity to them though. One can measure weight, ogive length, boat tail diameter, meplat uniformity, and others things between two bullets to get a pretty good idea of consistency. That being said, I do believe that the Matchkings leave some room for improvement in some areas, and I am waiting to test this with the Wildcatters.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here is the origional thread for those who might have missed it, or only saw part of it.
I would be interested to hear other forum members opinions as to my precieved attitude toward both richard and these bullets. Im just having trouble understanding how people are misunderstanding my intentions when I have stated them so many times.

Oh, and before I forget, don't call richard to ask him about the BCs on his bullets. He has not tested them yet, and the BCs he quotes are estimations based on various data provided by his die makers. According to other forum members, richard has been reluctant to provide BC numbers at all for this very reason. I mentioned this repeatedly in my origional thread, but apparently some forum members missed this. Don't bother Richard with questions about how he gets the BCs discussed around here.Give the man a chance to do what he does, that being make bullets!

I reviewed the conversation on that post between you and myself and found this:

[ QUOTE ]
4kedhorn,
I completly agree with everything you said, in fact I have already stated almost everything you have said! I know that his BC figures are predicted by the mfgs of his dies, and that they are approximate. Please review my previous posts for verification. I have exchanged emails several times with Richard. if you are interested, the pitchfork is still in the barn. It will stay there. No torch either, except for the british, then I have a surefire P9. Sorry, a weak attempt at flashlight humor.

[/ QUOTE ]

You were agreeing with my bold typed defense of the BC estimation. I don't know what other "off forum" dialogue you may have had with others but it seems that here you meant no ill will regarding estimated BCs. It seems that a clarification or or concurrence was more what you were interested in. No harm in that.

If you didn't have any bad intentions the why did you make this post??? Seems to me that this could have been all responded to the private individuals via email about it. Thus IMO shows trying to publicly badmouth Richard. As i am a big proponent of Richard's I am in a way defending him but i think this could have been done in emails to him and to Brent and GG.

I am not trying to and not going to get into a flame fest beacause i want Lynn to be able butter his bread.

There have been other people on this board that have ordered and use Richard's bullets and Vouch for the consistancy of his bullets. I have talked to Richard about some of the measuremants that i found with my remaining bullets that i reported to GG and said his die went bad and is getting a new one. As to what Brent has heard about the inconsistant measuremants from other people not from his own experience was that there was a batch of bullets that went out and Richard was asked about it and He checked his dies and found the problem and ordered new dies.

The man takes pride in his bullets and his service and communications with his fellow shooters to the highest degree. Very hard to find these days.

Kirby and I have said that Richard only has a projected B.C's from the die maker and may or may not be true. We also report what it takes "in our situation " fudging the b.c number in our ballistic programs to match our drops.

It was never meant to be this was the absolute B.C. number for this bullet but the bullets had a flatter trajectory than other bullets tested that had high B.C's but as this isn't a face to face conversation and is the internet, typed words can be taken out of context from the original poster.

We also had Dantec come on and want info from GG on his findings from shooting 2000 yards with the 300 Sierra match king to see how his findings compared to Dantec's model trajectory for this bullet. I have not seen or read anything that Dantec has come back to report his findings. Hence i take that as that GG's report didn't match Dantec's findings and he didn't want to say That the bullet for GG was inferior to what the data Dantec has.

In that thread, I believe, we came to the conclusion there are to many variables to calculate the B.C of ANY bullet due to differant geographic conditions. Brent had stated he found the B.C of the 300 Sierra to be .78-.79??(going from memory)at his location and his gun. I know guys that report the 300 Sierra of haveing .81 B.C in there rifle and location. Who is right? We all are due to that each rifle is differant and differant locations. I believe each bullet will have a differant flight characteristics in each person weapon and velocity and enviromental conditions. Shooters should only Look at what B.C's are being reported and try them out if they look good, in their own weapon and conditons to see if they see better results than other bullets they are using in their weapon.

To each his own. Me personaly, when i look for a bullet to use i will look at B.C's between differant makes of bullets and pick the one i think will work and try it out not relying on the Manufactures absolute B.C number because it may be higher or lower than stated.

4ked,
Thaks for having another look.
The ony "off forum" stuff I refered to was to a few emails that that others sent concerning variations in base to ogive, and BS length. These individuals weren't wanting to comment on the forum due to only having sampled relatively small batches of bullets, and 2 of them were quite some time ago. They didn't feel it was worth getting hammered over without knowing if their samples were represenative.
Reading Dave King's recent post about the 169.5gr wildcats BS variations, Richard seems to have this well under controll.

[ QUOTE ]
If you didn't have any bad intentions the why did you make this post??? Seems to me that this could have been all responded to the private individuals via email about it. Thus IMO shows trying to publicly badmouth Richard. As i am a big proponent of Richard's I am in a way defending him but i think this could have been done in emails to him and to Brent and GG.

I am not trying to and not going to get into a flame fest beacause i want Lynn to be able butter his bread.

[/ QUOTE ]

Matt,
Ithik this section is exactly what I was talking about in terms of misunderstanding my intent. When I exchanged wmails with richard, I did discuss BC, since what I was looking for was a LR bullet, and high BC is important for that purpose. As to why I didn't privately email GG and Brent, I didn't know who had what as fr as equipment for testing, and consequently would have nothing in the "to" section of my email. Hence my request for volunteers.

[ QUOTE ]
typed words can be taken out of context from the original poster

[/ QUOTE ]
I also think sometimes that if somebody walks into a conversation with a certian mindset, its also easy to take their intentions out of context as well. Black text on a white screen dosen't convey emotion or attitude very well.

[ QUOTE ]
Me personaly, when i look for a bullet to use i will look at B.C's between differant makes of bullets and pick the one i think will work and try it out not relying on the Manufactures absolute B.C number because it may be higher or lower than stated.

[/ QUOTE ]
in my selection process, I work a load at 300, then shoot it at 100, and 400. If all is well it goes to 1350yds for final tuning and testing. Its hard to get from 400yds to 1350 yds without a measured BC.... and thats all the origional post was after.

I also have to agree with Matt on this one. What other purpose does your post serve but to say Richard does not want to send you bullets because you offended him.

While I do not know the reasoning behind what Richard is doing, I can tell you that when I read your original post, My very first and still current impression is that you were out to prove that the Wildcat Bullets would not meet the standards that had been spoked of reguarding B.C.

If a future customer of mine posted on a public chat room basically stating that he was out to prove that my produce was no better then anyone elses then I would probably recommend that customer go else where as well.

Weither you ment to or not you came off as biased against the Wildcat Bullets. THis is just what I got from reading your posts.

TO be honest if you want to work with a bullet maker to help him provide ballistic data you may be better served to go to the source and do the testing in private and then produce the results after the testing instead of going about it the way you did.

I can say for a fact that Richard could give a rats rear wiether his bullets have a b.c. of .5 or 1.0.

As a fellow small business owner, I would have done nothing different then Richard did.

Again, I just feel that you came off like you were out to prove a point that these Wildcat Bullets could not possibly produce the b.c. values listed by some.

I will tell you for a fact that every b.c. I have printed on Richards bullets are a direct product of actual field shooting and tracking bullet trajectories, not over one distance or even over two different distances but at at least three different ranges, generally 100, 500 and either 800 or 1000.

These tests are what most call to simplistic to offer any meaningful data for pure B.C. values but they allow me to impact small targets from the muzzle to 1000 yards with amazing consistancy.

Something works and I could care less if my data is pure. It works in the field and that is all that counts. Never once have I printed a B.C. that was not a result of this testing. Actual range testing, not sitting in front of a computer commenting in the "magical B.C.s of the Wildcat Bullets".

I have to say, I am not suprised by Richards response to you.

And if you held no ill will we would not be having this discussion as you would have nothing to type about. I will not get into a pissing match on this topic as you have the right to say what you want but remember Richard has the right to sell bullets to who ever he wants. From reading your original posts, just the topic even, I fully agree with his course of action.

If anything, I see that you have went out of your way, practically in every post I might add, to state how you feel about Richard and his bullets, and is obvious it was to avoid any misinterpretation that might result from your desire to completely verify the computer generated predictions his die maker sites for his bullets.

As you did not assume Richard was pulling the wool over the public's eyes with inflated BC's, and stated essentially the opposite, Richard should also not assume you are out to betray him for some reason. I take someone's intentions at their word unless their intent is proven opposite, but in the past have been guilty of this too, maybe Richard will give you the benifit of the doubt with some more thought. I tend to make friends and value relationships where this respect is mutually understood and gravitate away from people who are not this way. Everyone makes mistakes and this is a trap people often realize they have fallen into with issues close to them are scrutinized etc.

This for some odd reason seems a sensitive issue to many and in reality it should only be if the numbers Richard gives as guestimates were actually given as wrighten in stone/tested and verified, which he plainly states are NOT.

Fact is, I and many others... probably the majority of posters on this board would like to see a few people dual chrono test these bullets to calculate an accurate sea level BC in which we could compare to any other bullet we might select. This helps everyone and in no way hurts anyone.

I know Jimmy Knox has had people test the JLK's and this is why he gives the BC's he does on the order form. If I were making bullets, I would not give ANY predicted BC's for my bullets for fear that it would be turned around on me as a marketing ploy if they were found to fall short of the predicted numbers. I know who I am and would never do anything of the sort, but I still know what people will say reguardles of that, people are people and this is what many do, and my reputation I value entirely too much. If my custom bullet's BC predictions were the astronomical numbers I see for Richards bullets I would be even more leary of this, way more so. Richard has the high road in any event, because they are just computer generated predictions and not guaranteed accurate, still he faces severe skepticism due to the extremely high BC numbers in those predictions.

I am skeptical. Anyone in their right mind would be.
I am also somewhat perplexed and frustrated that there are few real BC numbers for the real popular bullets, even after being made for quite some time now. Oh well, the same approach I've taken so far, use what I have been and test them myself whan I get the chance to. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Normally I wouldn’t say anything about stuff like this but sometimes you just have to say it like it is.

First of all it has been my opinion from what I’ve read since the inception of the threads of any kind concerning Wildcat bullets that all the majority of the people responding want to do is prove Richard wrong. I just can’t understand that because in case you haven’t read everything very well you need to know, “THERE’S NOTHING TO PROVE WRONG!”

Richard Graves never promised anything, he never made any outlandish statements. All he did was to tell us what he had found from computer modeling and nothing else. He gave us a starting point for testing. I have seen it stated repeatedly that the BC’s were estimates only, but nobody seems to understand what was said.

One of the few people that I have seen on here that actually shoot the Wildcat bullets and have compared them in the field to other bullets has been Kirby Allen. He never questioned or doubted because it was just understood that the BC’s were estimates. A starting place, if you will, for the testing and comparing to begin. He found that, for him, they are a better choice but I’ve also seen Kirby questioned for stating what he found, and again, I don’t understand. All he did was state what he found and, in deed, did tell everyone to do their own testing and draw their own conclusions. But, rather than do that for themselves everyone seems to just want to jump on the “Doubt the Wildcats” bandwagon. Weird………….

It amazes me that people would like to have bullets sent to them for testing. Try asking Sierra, Hornady, Speer or any other bullet manufacturer to send bullets for testing and see what they say.

I’ve never heard as many people questioning any of the major manufacturers about their BC’s as what I’ve seen about the Wildcat Bullets. When, in fact, most of them quote and put in print their BC’s as if they are gospel. We all know that they aren’t and can’t be because so many things can affect BC’s.

Try calling any of the major manufacturers of bullets and see if they will allow you to choose the design of the bullet, the jacket thickness, the point style and the weight and allow you to do it in almost any combination. Then, if you aren’t happy with their answer, ask them to build you something that hasn’t been built yet. And then, on top of that, see if they’ll take them back just because you don’t like them. They’ll just laugh at you but I know from experience that Richard won’t. If you don’t like them, he’ll take them back and as near as I know he’s only taken one box back and admittedly it was an order that was exactly what the customer wanted, they just were very wrong in what they ordered. He took them back anyway. He does whatever he can to give us exactly what we want and need.

I have been, and am, a small business operator and fully understand the time and effort that Richard takes to answer all of our questions and e-mails. It’s time he doesn’t get paid for but he does it. I for one can say that if I was in his shoes, just knowing what I’ve read, and not all of the other stuff that goes one, that I would not be as casual and considerate in talking to individuals that I didn’t really want to do business with. We used to be able to get an estimated BC from Richard as a point to start our testing but now he won’t give that info out and I fully understand why.

I’ve got a couple of boxes of Richard’s bullets here now that I’ll be testing in a couple of different guns. I expect nothing of them except that they be what they are, and that is a hand made, custom bullet, that was built to my specifications and are what I ordered. If I like them, and I’m sure I will, then I will use them exclusively. If, on the very small chance, I don’t like them, I won’t send them back and I won’t badmouth them. I’ve tried a lot of different bullets from a lot of different manufacturers that I didn’t like. I just simply never use them again. I don’t try to say that the manufacturer misrepresented them or said anything false or misleading. I can tell you that Richard’s bullets are very boring to measure and compare because they are so consistent. You can fall asleep reading the same number over and over again.

None of what I’ve said is pointed to anyone in particular just to everyone in general. Cut Richard some slack and use his bullets like you would any other bullets. Load them, shoot them, and compare them, if you have anything to compare them to and then do what ya gota do. And remember when and if anyone of you come up with a BC for the bullet you are testing that it’s not exact and you are probably wrong even though you may be very close.

I for one am very glad to see what Richard has done and will continue to support him and use his products as long as they are the quality they are now. I will even test them to see what I come up with for BC’s but more than likely I’ll probably just test and compare to what I’ve used before and decide which is best.

I can't say that I agree with you here but, I do want to say I appreciate the testing and valuable information you have provided on these bullets thus far. My worst fear was that Richard's bullets would fall far short of his predictions and it appears from your testing they will not fall that bad, or any. However, I hope you understand my desire to attach a number to a few of them that has been calculated to standard sea level conditions via dual chrono's as well.

[ QUOTE ]
I also have to agree with Matt on this one. What other purpose does your post serve but to say Richard does not want to send you bullets because you offended him.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, this post serves 5 purposes.
1. It seeks to inform those who were interestd in testing the bullets I was willing to donate for testing that I will be unable to donate them, and why.
2. It seeks to inform those members (and lurkers for that matter) who read the origional thread that they will not be seeing that information.
3. It seeks to further solidify the fact that your impression of me, and those that think I am antiwildcat bullets, is wrong.
4. To try and figure out what it is that makes those who have misinterpited my previous posts the way they did.
5. To remind members who read the origional thread, that richards BCs are estimates, generated by his die makers. Richard specifically cited answering questions about the accuracy, or process of determining his BCs from members of this board as being one of the reasons he was pissed of at me.

[ QUOTE ]
My very first and still current impression is that you were out to prove that the Wildcat Bullets would not meet the standards that had been spoked of reguarding B.C.

[/ QUOTE ]
If you take the time to review the origional thread, you will see that this is not, and was not my intention in the least. I have tried to tell you and others this since my very first post on the other thread. Maybe im inarticulate... maybe youre dense.... but I tend to get offended when people call me an [censored] and a liar.

[ QUOTE ]
If a future customer of mine posted on a public chat room basically stating that he was out to prove that my produce was no better then anyone elses then I would probably recommend that customer go else where as well.

[/ QUOTE ]
Again, I believe that entire mentality is a misunderstanding. I think the only member who recognized it as that was 4kedhorn. I was never interested in proving that Richard makes an inferior product. If you read over the origional thread you will see numerous statements that I have made that speciffically referance that I expect richard's bullets to be of high quality. I commented, if you recall, that you, being a respected riflesmith would not be likley to be building rifles around specific bullets that were of inferior quality.

[ QUOTE ]
Weither you ment to or not you came off as biased against the Wildcat Bullets. THis is just what I got from reading your posts.

[/ QUOTE ]
Looking back at the origional thread, I could understand how my 1st post could be misunderstood as being malicious. What I don't understand is after repeated statements to the contrary, why it is that many have such dificulty not reading into my posts about wildcats. In all the other threads I have posted to, and included a referance to regaurding my anxously awaiting my wildcats, there was no misunderstanding. Why here?

[ QUOTE ]
TO be honest if you want to work with a bullet maker to help him provide ballistic data you may be better served to go to the source and do the testing in private and then produce the results after the testing instead of going about it the way you did.

[/ QUOTE ]
I am not especially interested in "working with a bullet maker" I was interested in getting accurate data about the bullets I was planning to use. If that data were not avalable, I was willing to extrapolate data from other caliber bullets with simular designs. If you recall, in the origional thread, you stated that I should not expect richard to supply there bullets for testing. My reasons for "going about it the way I did" has been explained a couple of times. Here it is one last time.
Iwas interested in bullets. these bullets were estimated to have superior ballistic qualities that lend them to long range shooting. One of these is a high BC. Since I did not have access to equipment to measure BC, I asked for help from fellow LR shooters with that equipment. My posts were misunderstood as an attack on Richard personally, and his bullets in general. I explained that this was not my intention at all. The discussion settled down, and I waited for my bullets to arrive. When I inquired as to whether I should be expecting bullets anytime soon, I was told I was no longer welcome as a customer because some shooters misunderstood my origional posts. Some of these happened to
be friends of the gentleman who was going to make my bullets. When I learned that I was no longer welcome as a customer, I responded to richard directly with both an explination, and an apology. When neither were returned, I attempted to rectify one of his major complaints (see #5 above) I was then flamed again as trying to cause problems for Mr Graves.
As I have said before, I don't understand what it is that is being misunderstood.

[ QUOTE ]
Again, I just feel that you came off like you were out to prove a point that these Wildcat Bullets could not possibly produce the b.c. values listed by some.

[/ QUOTE ]
Others on this site, and some others have said that. I didn't. Period. After seeing the success that you and others were having, I decided to try some. When I found that there was no accurate data, I asked my fellow LR shooters for help.

[ QUOTE ]
I will tell you for a fact that every b.c. I have printed on Richards bullets are a direct product of actual field shooting and tracking bullet trajectories, not over one distance or even over two different distances but at at least three different ranges, generally 100, 500 and either 800 or 1000.

[/ QUOTE ]
I know that you have shot a lot of richards bullets, but I also know that you have posted several times with BCs for bullets that richard was planning to build. These numbers had to be estimates, since the bullets don't exist yet.

[ QUOTE ]
Never once have I printed a B.C. that was not a result of this testing.

[/ QUOTE ]
Please see above.

[ QUOTE ]
And if you held no ill will we would not be having this discussion as you would have nothing to type about.

[/ QUOTE ]
I have outlined 5 specific reasons above.
Before you post back with your "abinok is an [censored] who is out to get richard" hat on. ask yourself this.
What possible reason could abinok have for talking bad about richard or his bullets, especially bullets he was interested in shooting/buying?

No matter how many times I go over all of this, I just can't see what it is that got you and others deflected away from the intention of my origional post.

[ QUOTE ]
ss7mm
It amazes me that people would like to have bullets sent to them for testing. Try asking Sierra, Hornady, Speer or any other bullet manufacturer to send bullets for testing and see what they say.........We used to be able to get an estimated BC from Richard as a point to start our testing but now he won’t give that info out and I fully understand why.

[/ QUOTE ]
since you said your post wasn't pointed towards in particular, ill just address these two slivers...
I can't speak for Speer, But Sierra, Hornady and others reguraly provide bullets, especially new bullets for testing. The much talked about 300SMK is a prime example. 320s were made first, then revised to 300 after testing by private individuals. Even Sierra only has access to abourdene (sp) once a year. Im sorry to hear that Richard is no longer providing BC estimates. In my reply to richard, I offered to supply contact info for those who volunteered to test some of his bullets. I hope he follows through. I told richard that many would be interested in this data, including myself despite the fact that I was no longer welcome as a customer. I suppose its up to richard now.....
[ QUOTE ]
brent moffitt
If anything, I see that you have went out of your way, practically in every post I might add, to state how you feel about Richard and his bullets, and is obvious it was to avoid any misinterpretation that might result from your desire to completely verify the computer generated predictions his die maker sites for his bullets.

As you did not assume Richard was pulling the wool over the public's eyes with inflated BC's, and stated essentially the opposite, Richard should also not assume you are out to betray him for some reason. I take someone's intentions at their word unless their intent is proven opposite, but in the past have been guilty of this too, maybe Richard will give you the benifit of the doubt with some more thought. I tend to make friends and value relationships where this respect is mutually understood and gravitate away from people who are not this way. Everyone makes mistakes and this is a trap people often realize they have fallen into with issues close to them are scrutinized etc.

This for some odd reason seems a sensitive issue to many and in reality it should only be if the numbers Richard gives as guestimates were actually given as wrighten in stone/tested and verified, which he plainly states are NOT.

Fact is, I and many others... probably the majority of posters on this board would like to see a few people dual chrono test these bullets to calculate an accurate sea level BC in which we could compare to any other bullet we might select. This helps everyone and in no way hurts anyone.

I know Jimmy Knox has had people test the JLK's and this is why he gives the BC's he does on the order form. If I were making bullets, I would not give ANY predicted BC's for my bullets for fear that it would be turned around on me as a marketing ploy if they were found to fall short of the predicted numbers. I know who I am and would never do anything of the sort, but I still know what people will say reguardles of that, people are people and this is what many do, and my reputation I value entirely too much. If my custom bullet's BC predictions were the astronomical numbers I see for Richards bullets I would be even more leary of this, way more so. Richard has the high road in any event, because they are just computer generated predictions and not guaranteed accurate, still he faces severe skepticism due to the extremely high BC numbers in those predictions.

[/ QUOTE ]
Brent,
Thanks, im glad im making sense to somebody out there!
I doubt he will change his mind though, its already been 5 days and I haven't heard anything. I don't think it ever took him more than 3 hours to respond before...

If, as you say, you meant no ill will then fine and good. Could you have found a better way to word your posts? Probably, but what is done is done. How your typed words come across sometimes can be confusing.

See the quotes below from your previous posts. I personally believe that something that's between you and Richard should stay just that. Between you and Richard and not posted for everyone to see and possibly twist. Richard has his reasons and you have yours. I doubt that when he made the statements to you that he would have thought he would be making them to the world. He kept it private and I just thought you should have kept it private also.

[ QUOTE ]
Richard informed me that due to posts I had made on this board, he would not be filling my order. Richard expressed that he felt betrayed by my posts, and that he thought I had taken a position that was "he will do anything to sell you bullets" I presume refering to the claimed high BC that was estimated by his die makers.

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have emailed richard since his reply attempting to explain that I believe that all of this is a misunderstanding, and that, as I mentioned in my origional posts, i have no ill will toward Mr. Graves.
All of this to no avail. I have not heard anything from Richard since my reply 4 days ago.

About us

My family and I welcome you. I started LRH back in 2001 to provide a friendly place where like-minded individuals could share information and ideas to help take their long range shooting and hunting to the next level.